Ignoring misery

Miseries abound in life. The intensity of the misery and the pain it causes are a function of the mind. It is how we look at it. On a hot and sultry day when the power goes, the well placed man feels miserable when the fan or the air conditioner stops working. To the poor in the hut with no electric connection, the absence of power is no hardship. Miseries are the products of the mind. As we have seen the same situation produces different reactions to different people at different places. The eyes are just a device to see things. It is the mind that really sees and interprets. If the mind is clean, cleared of cobwebs of illusion, we tend to see things differently. What we considered at the night before we went to sleep as a great misery defying easy solution appears as manageable when we get up in the morning afresh. There is no change in the external situation. It is only a refreshed mind that looks at the problem in a different light.
Sri Ramana Maharishi says” the mind turned outwards on to the world becomes the ‘ego’ which is the small “self”, that is prey to innumerable wants and worries. Miseries and mortifications are the lot of such a lot. The same mind behaves or reacts differently in different men depending upon how it is conditioned. The mind turned inwards and in full view of the Self, it is oblivious to everything external to it. Miseries do not exist by themselves but what the mind makes or bargains for. They exist when allowed and disappear when ignored..Misery is relative to a person just as death in the family affects different individuals differently. When one daughter breaks down under sorrow, another one remains calm and composed. In sum miseries are the products of the mind. If you own them, they appear real. If you disown them they vanish.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer